


A Thousand More

by spinsterclaire



Series: For Imagine Claire and Jamie [12]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Conversations, Idk how to tag this shit w/e w/e., Love Poems, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 20:11:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7905988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinsterclaire/pseuds/spinsterclaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie and Claire discuss the future as Culloden approaches. Set around the first half of 208; provides some context for the Catullus poem used in 213.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand More

**Lallybroch - August 1745 (show!verse)**

“A bit like old times, isn’t it?” I said, flicking hay scraps from my bannock. “Was Leoch two years ago now, or three? Feels like ten.”

Jamie and I were taking a mid-afternoon snack in the stables, both needing distraction from thoughts of tomorrow’s journey. Jamie had been working tirelessly with Ian, their days spent strategizing our appeal for Old Lovat’s support. I, meanwhile, had been gathering the necessary medicines for prolonged travel, as a swift return to Lallybroch seemed increasingly unlikely. Further word of Charles’ plans had reached Broch Mordha, and all of it alluded to months on the road.

Fortunately, I had found a helper in Rabbie’s mother. Mary MacNab was an earnest woman, eager to please and obey instruction, though to something of a fault. I’d been agitated all day as she’d twittered at my elbow (“D’ye need anything else?”; “Is this how ye do it?”) and eventually fled to the stables for an hour’s peace.

“We were wed in the summer, so…” Jamie squinted, considering. “About two years, then.”

“Mmm, two years married to a savage.”

“Regret it, do ye?”

“Never,” I said, smiling. “But it’s rather strange to think we hardly knew each other two years ago.”

“We’ve always known each other, Sassenach. Whether we realized it or no,” Jamie replied, and he gave me a quick peck on the cheek. 

“But aye. To think two years ago we were sitting in Auld Alec’s stables – you, Claire Beauchamp, and me, an outlaw wi’ a price on his head.” He brightened suddenly, glowing with mischief. “Though I guess no’ much has changed in some respects. I wanted to bed ye back then just as much as I want to bed ye now.”

“Good to know I can always count on that, at least.” 

I broke off a piece of bannock and tossed it into his open mouth, though he pulled a face as he chewed. 

“Not to your liking? I could pick some grass…” I teased, remembering the story he’d told me once. “I  _do_  know how fond you are of it.”

“Verra funny, Sassenach – but nay, I’ve a hunger for something else today.” 

One red brow arched in suggestion, rising high above a twitching eye. I laughed as I always did at the graceless lowering of the eyelid, the scrunched face compensating for its stubborn left side. My husband, Jamie Fraser – capable in all but the winking of his eyes.

“Grass may be good when you’ve nothing else – and it keeps the scurvy away, too. But I’m free of the scurvy, see?” He beamed for my benefit, exposing a neat row of teeth set in healthy gums. I faked applause. “I  _am_  fair starved, though. A man needs a proper feast after his labors, aye?”

“A feast, is it?” I replied, making a point to raise my own brow. I feigned more playful ignorance. “Well, there’s plenty of potatoes to go around. That ought to do the trick.”

“I dinna want  _potatoes_ ,” Jamie replied, the word bursting with disgust. “I’ve had more potatoesthan any man should.”

“More than  _anyone_  should, I’d wager,” and I jokingly held out an arm for inspection. “Have I turned into a potato yet? I swear I’m starting to look like one.”

Since unearthing Lallybroch’s successful crop, our diet had consisted of little else. Whether boiled, mashed, or baked, we’d prepared the vegetable in every way imaginable – and a few, to Fergus’ credit, beyond imagination. The monotony had made some of the younger tenants creative, and they’d taken to piling their potatoes with whatever extras they could find. (“Try it, m’lady! It is quite good with syrup.”) Jamie, on the other hand, now ate them with his nose pinched, like a petulant child forced to eat his greens.

“Nay, ye look bonnie, Sassenach. And ye dinna taste like a potato, thank God.” Jamie pulled me towards him, and his tongue flicked the side of neck. “Plenty to go ‘round of what I  _do_  want, anyways.” His hand slid downwards in demonstration, palm cupping the round expanse of my bottom.

Too exhausted to play at mock-offense, I melted into him. “Well, who am I to stand between a man and his feast? Though I do wonder…Of gluttony and lust, which is the worse Deadly Sin?”

“They’re both sins, and they’re both ‘Deadly’,” Jamie replied, though his voice was suddenly distant. My cheek lay against his breast, and I counted his heartbeats as they tapped against my temple. Fast, powerful.

“I suppose one  _can_ suffer from a lustful gluttony…” I tickled Jamie’s leg but he didn’t acknowledge me, remaining still as stone despite my touch. “Jamie, are you listening?”

When I craned my neck to face him, his eyes were faraway, searching beyond the frame of the stable door. The fields shone bright beneath the sun, potato plants exploding in leafy, green blooms from stable to house. Most had produced a fruitful crop, the results of which now lay in piled sacks for storing. Still, we had made quick work of our supply since July, and thoughts had already turned to next year’s planting. Lallybroch would need enough to last through the winter – and whatever would follow it too. I knew Jamie worried.

“They’ll be all right, Jamie. Truly.” I waved my hand, encompassing the rows of potato plants as proof. “There really _is_ enough to go around.”

“You said as there’d be a famine – after Culloden,” Jamie whispered, eyes breaking from his invisible horizon. “And ye were right in telling Jenny to plant the potatoes, Sassenach. But what if it isna enough?”

I looked to the ground. There was no telling what was and was not enough – not these days, at least. There were too many questions, too many possibilities for any sort of certainty, save that our concerns for the future would eventually become those of our present. Of all people, Jamie and I knew this. Time might move in different directions, but it could never be stopped. All things came to pass.

“They’ll manage. You know they will.” 

I kissed Jamie’s shoulder, imagining the bone and muscle just beneath the skin. My thoughts turned again to what I knew of Culloden’s aftermath: the defeat, the clearings and starvation. I imagined this same sheet of muscle eaten by weariness, these same bones surging forth as if reaching for death. I shoved the visions away and held his arms closer to me. Strong, sturdy.

“You’re Frasers. If famine comes knocking at Lallybroch’s door, Jenny will beat it away with a broom – and probably scold it for dirtying her floors, too.”

Jamie disentangled himself from my embrace and chuckled, scooting backwards. He leaned against the wall, joints cracking and popping as he stretched. His legs extended towards me, and I removed one boot, taking his newly bared foot into my lap. Hoping to lighten the mood, I wrinkled my nose and waved a hand before it.

“Oof! Your feet  _stink_ , Jamie.” He wiggled his toes in indignation, and I bent to kiss them – from big to small – before digging firm fingers into his soles.

“I canna deny ye my smelly feet, Sassenach,” he said, sighing as I kneaded the skin. “And I won’t deny that my sister doesna like messy guests, either. But the thought does trouble me – thinking as what happened in Paris might happen here as well. That we’ve done what we could, but it willna make much difference in the end.”

“Mmm,” I said, choosing to focus on the movements of my hands. But as they glided along the roughened slopes, I saw the blood that might one day stain them. So many schemes and secrets – and just as many lost and bloodied, too. Our failures were written on the prince’s call-to-arms, Jamie’s signature neatly forged at the bottom.

Since its arrival in the post three days ago, the document had remained in the study, its silent mockery slipping through the walls and beneath our bedroom door. I imagined the voice of that scrawling print would follow us tomorrow – and all the days after, as well – when we left for Lovat’s.  _James Alexander Mackenzie Fraser._

“We can’t be sure of the end, not yet. There’s still hope,” I said finally, trying for matter-of-factness. “You said so earlier - we’ve changed history before.”

 _Thomas Baxter…Louise…_ I counted.  _Every patient I had healed at the Hôpital_ …All fates rewritten by my hands.

Jamie sat forwards and grabbed my wrists, stilling me. 

“Aye, I havena given up yet, Sassenach, make no mistake. But I’m no’ scared to die, even so. I’ve made peace wi’ my death, thinking my time was up long before this. But I couldna make peace wi’ Jenny’s death. Or Ian’s, or Young Jamie’s and Kitty’s – not knowing that, in some way, it’d be the fault of my own failures.”

“ _Your_  fault?” I said, pulling away. “Jamie, what happens after that battle will have nothing to do with us. People will die with or without you, as they always have.” I had tried to swallow the words as they came, but there was no point anymore, truth said aloud. I pressed on. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s that bloody  _fool_  of a prince’s.”

Jamie nodded somberly and tugged again at my hands. Obeying, I got to my knees and crawled towards him, twisting around so that my back lay pressed against his chest. The two of us sat silently for a minute, the air around us ringing with the growing surety of war.

Finally, Jamie stirred behind me, bringing his forehead to my skull. When he spoke, it vibrated through me, filling me, so that I knew I would hear his voice long after we left these stables, this place.

“I said as I didna fear my death - and it’s true, I don’t. But Sassenach, there is no man, god, or beast that scares me more than the thought of yours.”

I wrapped an arm around Jamie’s neck, keeping him close to me. “Lucky for you, I’m not going anywhere. If it comes to it, James Fraser, I’ll die with you on that battlefield.”

The sound he made then was something guttural - a sob? laughter? - and I felt him recoil at my words. Expecting a rebuttal, I persisted.  

“You can’t stop me, you know, so don’t even bother. This is my war now, too. I belong on that moor as much as you do.”

“Ye dinna belong to  _war,_  Sasseanch,” Jamie growled. “You belong to _me_. Now, you’ve fought your battle – before, in your own time. I ken that. But it doesna mean you must fight this one as well.”

“Jamie, I’ve  _been_  fighting, and – ” I started, but his expression silenced me.

“Aye. You ken what it is to watch an innocent man bleed. And ye’ve seen death too, many of them senseless…But d’ye no’ see that yours would be just as senseless?”

I was practically seething now, my hands in crumpled fists. “So dying for the people I love is ‘senseless’, is it? Because if that’s the case, then yours would be just as senseless as mine.”

Jamie shook his head.

“ _Ach_ , I dinna mean it that way. I mean that there’s hope for you,  _mo nighean donn;_ a life for you, beyond all this. Now, I’ll no’ ask much of you – only that you keep to yer promises. And you  _made_ me a promise, Sassenach. You said – ”

Memories of Frank and of the standing stones, tall and shrieking, turned my blood cold. I twisted to face my husband and spoke with an anger made of ice, not fire.

“I know what I said, Jamie. And yes! I do belong to you. That’s the whole point! What life is there without you?  _I belong to you_. I belong  _with_  you.”

I hoped my anger might dissuade him, that he would see the visions of Frank in my own eyes and be moved against the idea. But as strong-willed as I was, Jamie was too – more so, even. And when I asked, fear having made made me quiet, “Will you really ask me to keep that promise?”, I already knew the answer.

Jamie’s arms tightened around me in wordless confirmation, and I felt a lump build in my throat. I would not cry – couldn’t – for I would save my tears when I needed them most. Instead, I moved closer, reassured by the warmth of Jamie’s breath against my skin. He was here. Alive. Mine.

“Will you really deny me that promise?” he said, tone matching mine. “I willna surrender you to death, Sassenach, but I’ll surrender you to Frank if it means I dinna have to.”

“But I made you another promise, Jamie,” I whispered. “‘Til death us do part,’ remember?  _That’s_ the promise I’ll never deny you. Even if I’m hungry or tired or -  _who knows what!_  - I won’t turn my back. Not on you, not on Jenny and Ian. Not on anyone. These are my people now - my  _family -_  too. ” 

At this, Jamie brought my hand to his lips, brushing against the tarnished band of my wedding ring. The key to Lallybroch; home wrapped around my finger, always.

“Aye. They are.”

“We’ve won…” I said, and I kissed him lightly, then dropped a hand to my stomach, “and we’ve lost. But we’re bound together now, you and I.”

“And so ye’ll choose this, then? Even if it means we willna see one year from now…Ye’ll choose to stay, knowing what may come of it?”

“Jamie, I chose this, and  _you,_  a long time ago. And if asked again, I would choose you every single time - and a thousand more times after that.”

“‘Aye.  _A thousand more_ ’,” Jamie echoed wistfully. My hands still clasped within his, he unfurled my fingers so that my left palm lay splayed open, the ring catching the light of the sun. He twisted the band around again and again, smiling. “Sometimes, when I’m no’ sure about what lays ahead for us…Well, d’ye mind the poem Hugh Munroe gave us for our wedding?”

I nodded. “Catullus.”

The words had been scribbled in a messy penmanship, the small roll of parchment wrapped around a stone of amber. I remembered only bits and pieces of the words, though a few lines loomed large in my memory:

“ _Then let amorous kisses dwell…_ ” I began.

“ _On our lips, begin and tell…_ ”

“ _A Thousand, and a Hundred, score…_ ”

“ _A Hundred, and a Thousand more._ ” 

Jamie leaned forwards again, his nose touching mine.

“You’re a bloody romantic, do you know that, James Fraser?” I whispered. “But I do hope it’s more than a thousand.”

“Oh, Claire,” Jamie breathed, quietly. “So many more.”


End file.
